Boro Bear! In the Flesh! Or is that in the Fur? Ha!

Right, they said it will be a cold day in hell before I make two posts in a day, but balls to what they think - I have important news. If by 'important', you mean 'fully grown man dressed head to foot as a curious footballing bear'.

Yes, this is your chance to go to Stevenage and meet Boro Bear, the mascot of Stevenage Boro, without any of the attendant risks of being forcibly ejected from the stadium for pitch invasions and given a lifetime ban.

He will be at (gasp) Asda on Wednesday lunchtime between 11am and 1pm, (thrill) the Westgate Centre on Thursday afternoon between 1pm and 3pm and at (oh my giddy knees) Tesco in the town centre on Friday afternoon between 1pm and 3pm. If you're under 16 (and let's face it, you're not - that was such a long time ago that you can't even remember if you ever were 16),
you can get free tickets for Saturday's game off him. If not, you can just give him a big hug.

Alan Shearer: a Joke

Here's a joke I made up about Alan Shearer. Well, I say joke; it's more a thinly veiled outpouring of hatred. With a punchline.

Alan Shearer was tragically killed in a freak punditry accident on Match of the Day (Alan Hansen escaped with minor burn-marks to his v-neck jumper). On his way up to heaven, he meets St. Peter at the pearly gates. St Peter says, 'Alan, we've been watching your good work and sharp shooting here from heaven, and God would very much like you to sit at his right hand. What do you say?'. Shearer, though, refused to say anything, but friends of Alan Shearer later made it known that Alan would not consider being anyone's number two, and that after he'd completed his deity coaching badges, he would be in the running for the top job.

Wem-Ber-Ley, Wem-Ber-Ley

What have I been up to recently? Only participating in the most historic occasion ever to happen ever. Yes, that's right, I'm talking Stevenage Borough in the FA Trophy final at Wembley on Saturday. 53,261 other people were there too, most of them eager to see what kind of home £1bn gets you these days. The answer? Really powerful hand-driers (of which I am already a fan), the sort that make your skin ripple and sound like a jet engine revving up. Also, it's the one place on earth where men have to queue to get into toilets and women don't, such is the equality of provision. However, if they hold a massively female dominated event (I can't come up with any more precise description for fear of being arrested or beaten up, unfortunately, but it did involve a kitten-cooing convention as one of the elements), the rightful queue disparity will be restored.

Getting away from the toilets, what you really want to know is how did Boro do? Well, in keeping with the frustrating way they've been all season, they played like drunk clowns for periods in the first half, giving away two goals while the defenders all tried to get into a car but the doors kept falling off whilst throwing buckets of glitter over each other (I had a good view, and I'm pretty sure that's why they didn't put tackles in on the goalscorer). So Boro entered half-time two goals down, and woe was me. Oh woe. But, following a half-time talk by, I can only assume, Boro Bear (who can be seen on the above picture at the far left of the line of players) spurred the team on to score three second-half goals and win a big pot of hunny. Very exciting. Best thing to happen to Stevenage since I left, reported the local paper on Monday, somewhat vindictively.

Apologies for not posting anything for ages, but I've been living in fear. Every tiny noise in the flat fills me full of dread anticipation. Any creak, bang, jangle or flapping of the wings of a pigeon in the jaws of a cat makes me start in terror. Oh, I think I may have given the game away. Damn.

Yes, the first victim of the Mog Summer of Horror has been taken. A young pigeon by the name of Flappy was bought to an untimely demise by the rampant cat-jaws of our cat earlier in the week, but I've known it was coming. There's something about the demeanour of a cat - perhaps a devillish twinkle in her eye, perhaps the extra vim she puts into chasing the toy panda - that lets you know that SHE WILL KILL AGAIN.

It's the bin-men I feel sorry for. They're the poor buggers who have to take it away.

(NB - cat-kill photo above not done by me or my cat - it's from here. Thanks, Flickr).

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Why is it that the only people to wear shorts all year round are footballers and postmen? What is it that they have in common? Apart from always being down the pub (and I really can only speak for the postmen of the N5 postal district here, not to put any kind of slur upon the good name of postpeople - footballers, however, I feel free to cast aspersions about, as I've seen some right bloody rubbish football recently).

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On a different, and possibly even more whimsical tack: I wonder, am I the only person who regularly sees nuns on the way to work? While I cycle by, slickly oiled machine that I am, habitted-up nuns shuffle past.

Anyone else see any nuns -or better still - monks on their way to work? (NB Buddhists DON'T count. Sorry.)

New Newness and Promises That Won't Be Kept

Hey there, little reader, you. In lieu of actually writing anything, I've instead been tinkering with the new Blogger templates (hence the shiny newness on which you read these words). In one fell swoop, they've made it both much easier and also impenetrably difficult to edit the template. Fact was, the old one was looking like a dog, and I had to take it out round the back of the internet and cave its head in with a big spade made of code. Also, I just tweaked one of the default templates slightly. Anyway, enough of that.

Actually, one more thing on the topic - you won't be able to see the comments on the main page any more. The Man can't cope with such free speech, man. You'll have to click on the comments bit at the end of each post, or you could subscribe to the comments feed (see side panel for more on this). Stupid new things that aren't as good as the old things.

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Watching Man Utd v Reading earlier in the week, I was struck by John Motson's introduction to the game, which has been presented here in the form of a poem:

Outside there's a conference centre,
A luxury hotel,
An indoor training complex.
But I think what most of us appreciate,
(Those old enough to drive, anyway - heh!)
Is the location of the Madejski,
Just a mazy dribble
By Christiano Ronaldo
Over a couple of roundabouts
Would take him onto Junction 11
Of the M4,
As that westbound motorway
Roars out of London
Through the Thames Valley
And onwards to Bristol
And Cardiff,
Where the Millenuim Stadium is still on standby
Just in case the new Wembley
Is not ready to stage
The final
From which
These two
Teams tonight
Are just
Three matches
Away.

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I'm in a very excitable musical mood at the moment, and am currently enthusing about:
 
CSS - endearingly gonzo disco-rock from the Brazilians responsible for 'Off the Hook', 'Alala' and 'Lets Make Love and Listen to Death from Above'. The squeaky 40-a-day vocals really help.

Gossip - Oh yes, I can really get into something months after everyone else is fed up of the NME hype. Sounds like a less disorientating Public Image Ltd or a better tunes Radio 4, this is nothing that hasn't been done to death in the recent punk-funk craze of about the past 5 years, but it's done very well, and (agreeing with Noel Gallagher) Beth Ditto has got a great voice.

Regina Spektor - I meant to put 'On The Radio' on the Xmas CD, but forgot, like a durrbrain. Other opinion in my house holds that 'Fidelity' is better, but you don't want to trust the musical opinion of a cat, do you? The whole album is great too, and it gets my Well-Written Lyrics Award for having well-written lyrics that are written well.


My words don't make the music come alive in your brain LIKE YOU ACTUALLY WERE LISTENING TO IT? Well, there's something wrong with your CRITICAL FACULTIES, but I won't hold it against you - low-rate previews of these people follow: CSS, Gossip, Regina Spektor - click click click.